New Test for Consciousness in 'Comatose' Patients

ScienceDaily (Nov. 9, 2011) — The Coma Science Group (CRCyclotron, University of Liège /Liège University Hospital), led by Dr Steven Laureys, has developed, along with its partners in London, Ontario, (Canada) and Cambridge (England), a portable test which will permit a simpler and less expensive diagnosis of 'vegetative' patients who still have consciousness, despite the fact that they do not have the means to express it.

Interesting thought

A Cognitive Teardown of Angry Birds

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Wednesday November 09, @01:15PM 

from the i-really-hate-birds dept.

Hugh Pickens writes"The 50 million individuals who have downloaded 'Angry Birds' play roughly 200 million minutes of the game a day, which translates into 1.2 billion hours a year, more than ten times the 100 million hours spent creating Wikipedia over the entire life span of the online encyclopedia. Why is this seemly simple game so massively compelling? Charles L. Mauro performs a cognitive teardown of the user experience of Angry Birds and concludes that the game is engaging, in fact addictive, due to the carefully scripted expansion of the user's mental model of the strategy component and incremental increases in problem/solution methodology. The birds are packed with clever behaviors that expand the user's mental model at just the point when game-level complexity is increased ... For example, why are tiny bananas suddenly strewn about in some play sequences and not in others? Why do the houses containing pigs shake ever so slightly at the beginning of each game play sequence? Why is the game's play space showing a cross section of underground rocks and dirt? One can spend a lot of time processing these little clues, consciously or subconsciously. 'Creating truly engaging software experiences is far more complex than one might assume, even in the simplest of computer games,' writes Mauro. 'You go Birds! Your success certainly makes others Angry and envious.'"

PSA: FEMA to test nationwide Emergency Alert System today, emphasis on 'test'

By Amar Toor  posted Nov 9th 2011 6:13AM

Don't freak out or anything, but at 2 PM EST today, the US government will sound a nationwide alarm. Barring a coincidence of cataclysmic proportion, however, it will only be a test. It's all part of FEMA and the FCC's Emergency Alert System (EAS), which is slated to be tried out on a nationwide level for the very first time. If, like us, you've spent a healthy portion of your life sitting in front of the TV, you're probably familiar with those monthly local alerts that tend to flash across the screen smack dab in the middle of a Saved by the Bell rerun. That's basically what's gonna happen today across the nation's television and radio networks. Some TV viewers will hear that familiar "this is a test" message during the trial, though most will simply see the word "test" run across their screens. The EAS would allow the president to disseminate information to the public in times of real emergency, which is why the government is so eager to make sure it actually works. All told, it'll last about 30 seconds, so plan your End of the World party accordingly. For more details, hit up the source links below.

Oil Executive: Military-Style 'Psy Ops' Experience Applied

Last week’s oil industry conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Houston was supposed to be an industry confab just like any other — a series of panel discussions, light refreshments and an exchange of ideas.


It was a gathering of professionals to discuss “media and stakeholder relations” in the hydraulic fracturing industry — companies using the often-controversial oil and gas extraction technique known as “fracking.”

But things took an unexpected twist.

CNBC has obtained audiotapes of the event, on which one presenter can be heard recommending that his colleagues download a copy of the Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual. (Click below to hear the audio.) That’s because, he said, the opposition facing the industry is an “insurgency.”

NASA Proposes Orion Spacecraft Test Flight In 2014; Agency Moves to Implement Deep Space Exploration Plan

ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2011) — NASA plans to add an unmanned flight test of the Orion spacecraft in early 2014 to its contract with Lockheed Martin Space Systems for the multi-purpose crew vehicle's design, development, test and evaluation. This test supports the new Space Launch System (SLS) that will take astronauts farther into space than ever before, create U.S. jobs, and provide the cornerstone for America's future human spaceflight efforts.

NASA Develops Super-Black Material That Absorbs Light Across Multiple Wavelength Bands

ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2011) — NASA engineers have produced a material that absorbs on average more than 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light that hits it -- a development that promises to open new frontiers in space technology.

Researchers Create Extra-Long Electrical Arcs Using Less Energy

ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2011) — Researchers at the University of Canterbury, in New Zealand, have developed a new, lower-voltage method of generating extra-long, lightning-like electrical arcs.

Directed Energy Weapon Downs Mosquitos

Posted by samzenpus on Friday February 12 2010, @03:36PM 

from the two-pound-hammer-and-ten-penny-nail dept.

wisebabo writes"Nathan Myhrvol demonstrated at TED a laser, built from parts scrounged from eBay, capable of shooting down not one but 50 to 100 mosquitos a second. The system is 'so precise that it can specify the species, and even the gender, of the mosquito being targeted.' Currently, for the sake of efficiency, it leaves the males alone because only females are bloodsuckers. Best of all the system could cost as little as $50. Maybe that's too expensive for use in preventing malaria in Africa but I'd buy one in a second!"We ran a story about this last year. It looks like the company has added a bit more polish, and burning mosquito footage to their marketing.

Light Barrier Repels Mosquitoes

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday November 03, @02:06AM 

from the raise-shields dept.

kodiaktau writes"Dr. Szabolcs Marka has received one of five $1M grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue his experiments with using light beams to create mosquito barriers. This is the second grant he has received from the foundation and proves to be a deviation from the previous and more dangerous use of lasers to control mosquitoes. A video of the light barrier in action can be seen here"

NASA Studying Ways to Make 'Tractor Beams' a Reality

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2011) — Tractor beams -- the ability to trap and move objects using laser light -- are the stuff of science fiction, but a team of NASA scientists has won funding to study the concept for remotely capturing planetary or atmospheric particles and delivering them to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft for analysis.

New sensor can read your heart from afar, but knows not your feelings

By Jesse Hicks  posted Nov 3rd 2011 5:38AM

Are you fed up with your current ECG sensor? Tired of all the mess of electroconductive gels, sticky electrodes and tangled wires? How about this: Britain's Plessey Semiconductors offers an ECG sensor that promises heart-monitoring without the hassle. We've seen similar technology before, but according to the company, the Electric Potential Integrated Circuit -- or EPIC, as it's humbly called -- can read heartbeats even through a sweater; future versions might be embedded in hospital gurneys for constant, unobtrusive monitoring. Like an extremely sensitive voltmeter, it detects tiny changes in electric fields, which means it could also be used for Kinect-style motion interfaces. The company even imagines a future system where firefighters can use the EPIC to find humans in a smoke-filled room. If you're thinking, "My, that sounds just like my Deus Ex dreams" -- hey, we're right there with you.

Another Step Towards Graphene Semiconductors

Posted by samzenpus on Monday October 31, @08:10AM 

from the next-step dept.

derGoldstein writes"Ars has an article up about the two latest 'papers demonstrating that, if you change the way the graphene stacks, you obtain a voltage-controlled bandgap ... Between these two papers, a fairly complete understanding of the bandgap behavior in three-layer graphene has been obtained, leaving only the challenge of making the stuff.'"

Student Loans In America: the Next Big Credit Bubble

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday October 30, @08:50PM 

from the bursting-education dept.

PolygamousRanchKid writes"In late 1965, President Lyndon Johnson stood in the modest gymnasium of what had once been the tiny teaching college he attended and announced a program to promote education. Almost a half-century later these modest steps have metastasized into a huge, federally guaranteed student-loan industry. On October 25th the Obama administration added indebted students to the list of banks, car companies, homeowners, solar manufacturers and others that have benefited from a federal handout. In response to students burying their obligations in court during the 1970s, anti-default provisions were imposed to make it almost impossible to shed student loans in bankruptcy. There are increasingly loud calls for reform of the system, with demands that range from a full-fledged bail-out of borrowers to a phased curtailment of government lending. The changes announced this week are designed to ease the pressure on struggling graduates. Borrowers who qualify will get payment relief, not debt relief. The administration says these changes will have no cost to taxpayers."

55% of Real-Time Entertainment is Consumed on TV, Mobile Device or Tablet

By Richard MacManus / October 26, 2011 8:15 PM / 0 Comments

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Real-time entertainment traffic dominates the Web now; and over half of it happens on devices other than a PC or laptop computer. This according to a new report by research company Sandvine. The report states that "by volume, 55% of Real-Time Entertainment traffic is destined for the television (either directly to a smart TV or via an intermediary like a game console or set-top device), a mobile device or tablet." Those statistics, along with data from Mary Meeker's Web 2.0 Summit presentation last week, emphasize just how far we've come in the post-PC era.

UK Police Buy Covert Cellphone Surveillance System

Posted by samzenpus on Monday October 31, @05:22AM 

from the getting-a-better-net dept.

digitig writes"UK Metropolitan Police have purchased a 'covert surveillance technology that can masquerade as a mobile phone network, transmitting a signal that allows authorities to shut off phones remotely, intercept communications and gather data about thousands of users in a targeted area.' Other customers apparently include 'the U.S. Secret Service, the Ministry of Defence and regimes in the Middle East.'"

The Weight of an e-Book

Posted by samzenpus on Monday October 31, @02:21AM 

from the because-he-can dept.

whoever57 writes"According to Prof Kubiatowicz from Berkeley, each time an additional book is downloaded to an e-reader, the mass of the e-reader increases. The effect doesn't really make the devices more difficult to carry: the professor calculates that 4GB of books would increase its weight by a billionth of a billionth of a gram— about the mass of a single virus or DNA molecule."

Drink the juice

Apparently the juice is better than the pill.

Interesting chart about phone OSs

Interesting chart about phone OS support.  Does not speak well to Android.

David passed on some decent science jokes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7DkeQ0roAM&feature=player_embedded

In Bolivia, a Supervolcano Is Rising

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 27, @08:59AM 

from the going-for-volcano-of-the-year dept.

dutchwhizzman writes"Uturuncu is a Bolivian supervolcano. Research suggests that it has an eruption frequency of roughly 300.000 years and the last eruption was, give or take a few years, 300.000 years ago. Research suggests that it started rising in a 70 km circumference by 1 to 2 centimeters per year, making it the fastest-growing volcano on the planet. Break out the tin foil hats, and store plenty of canned beans, because it may just erupt before Yellowstone pops its cork."

US Funds Aggressive Tech To Cut Solar Power Costs

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 27, @05:33AM 

from the aim-big dept.

coondoggie writes"The US Department of Energy wants researchers and scientists to 'think outside the box' and come up 'highly disruptive Concentrating Solar Power technologies that will meet 6/kWh cost targets by the end of the decade.' The DOE's 'SunShot Concentrating Solar Power R&D' is a multimillion dollar endeavor that intends to look beyond what it calls incremental near-term tosupport research into transformative technologies that will break through performance barriers known today such as efficiency and temperature limitations."

China Hires 1 Million People To Fight Fake Products

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 27, @12:23AM 

from the authenticity-police dept.

hackingbear writes"In a sign of the Chinese Government's intention to crack down on the black market, there were about 1 million people employed to remove fake goods from Chinese streets, according to the vice-chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Wang Jinzhen. Like our War on Drugs, the chance of that succeeding is not very high. 'I don't think it will be completely corrected, but still it will be eased,' he said. 'That's good for China and the company and for everyone in the world.' One key reason why companies keep their R&D departments out side of China is because of concern over IP protection. As an engineer, should we wish their effort genuine and successful? Or as your grandma warned you, be careful what you wish for."

Mitsubishi Hack Stole Nuclear, Defense Data

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday October 25, @09:55PM 

from the nothing-important-just-some-stuff dept.

judgecorp writes"When Mitsubishi announced in September it had been hacked in August it was criticized for keeping quiet for a month. Now it appears that the attackers got nuclear power plant and military aircraft detailsaccording to sources quoted in the Japanese media."

Epic Geomagnetic Storm Erupts

Posted by timothy on Tuesday October 25, @08:50AM 

from the good-name-for-a-candy-bar dept.

astroengine writes"On Monday, at around 2 p.m. ET, a coronal mass ejection (CME) slammed into the Earth's magnetosphere. For a short time (between 3:06 p.m and 3:11 p.m. ET), energetic solar wind particles penetrated as deep as geosynchronous orbit — home to hundreds of communication satellites. As a consequence, a geomagnetic storm is underway,generating bright aurorae across very low latitudes."Adds reader dtmos, quoting from Spaceweather, which also has a beautifulphoto gallery:"'The impact strongly compressed Earth's magnetic field, directly exposing geosynchronous satellites to solar wind plasma, and sparked an intense geomagnetic storm. As night fell over North America, auroras spilled across the Canadian border into the contiguous United States.' Aurora were seen as far south as Baileyton, Alabama."